The paper presents an experimental study of the micromechanical behaviour of artificially cemented sand particles samples, prepared by means of a custom-made procedure developed by the Authors. The laboratory tests were carried out by means of a custom-built inter-particle loading apparatus, able to apply either different combinations of forces or displacements to the samples. The results were compared with those obtained on uncemented natural sand particles tested using the same apparatus at the same test conditions. All the tests were performed on Leighton Buzzard sand, which was chosen both to prepare the artificially cemented samples and for the natural sand tests. A study of the influence of the geometrical properties of the bond (e.g. thickness and diameter) was carried out, highlighting the main differences between the behaviour of cemented and uncemented sands at the micro-scale.
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